Corliss Tech Review Group

It weighs just 34 grams, is 72 x 35 x 12 mm in size, and costs only the $39: The Google Chromecast looks and feels like a USB flash drive with a glandular problem. Cheap, easy to set up and even easier to use, there's really nothing to dislike about the Google streaming device, except for one thing: Canadian content (which we will get to in a moment). The Chromecast is so small that once it's plugged into an HDMI port in the back of a television set, there's almost no indication that it's a part of your home theatre setup. Only its power cord, which can either be plugged into a wall socket or available USB port, gives a hint that it's even there. Unlike other streaming media devices like the Apple TV or Roku 3, Google Chromecast doesn't come with a remote control, or in fact, any onboard applications or content. Everything, from setting up the device to watching a video from your personal media collection or browsing YouTube, is done through the use of apps on an Android phone or tablet, iOS device or via Google Chrome browser on a Chrome OS, Windows or Mac PC. No matter which device you use with the Chromecast, setup is a cinch. Simply power the device, plug it into an available television HDMI port and follow the Chromecast's onscreen prompts. The device will walk you through the process of connecting it to a Wi-Fi network, pairing with your choice of source device and downloading any available firmware updates. Even with the lousy Internet speeds I suffered while testing the hardware in rural southwestern Ontario I was setup and ready to start streaming content to my Chromecast in under 10 minutes.

Android, iOS, Windows Phone. Each of these mobile platforms had to start somewhere, and none were anywhere near perfect on the first try. Fortunately, each OS gets better with every iteration until, at some point, it all just clicks. Arguably, Windows Phone just came of age with its latest update, version 8.1. Even before today, Windows Phone only had a few big holes remaining and indeed, 8.1 appears to fill those gaps. In particular, the OS now has a fancy notification center in addition to those signature Live Tiles; the keyboard now allows for swipe gestures; and last but not least, it now has Cortana, a virtual assistant to take on Siri, Google Now and Samsung S Voice. The 8.1 update is a fairly significant one, and I got the opportunity to take it for a spin ahead of the official developer preview's launch. It may not be perfect yet, but it's clear Windows Phone has finally grown up. Cortana Windows Phone included a search option from the beginning, and though it was useful at the time, rivals like Siri, S Voice and Google Now have quickly turned the tide, rendering Microsoft first "voice assistant" completely obsolete. Thankfully, the 8.1 update introduces a personal assistant named Cortana to help bring Windows Phone into the modern era. Named after Master Chiefs trusty AI sidekick in Halo, Cortana is designed to help you do whatever you do on a phone. Think: scheduling appointments, alerting you to upcoming flights, telling you the weather, offering up directions, dictating messages, opening apps and adjusting settings. She even tells jokes and responds in humorous ways to (most) silly questions. Those are all givens these days, so let's instead move on to the more unusual things she can do.

Welcome to Gadget Review's new weekly app review column. We are starting out with iOS apps only, but in the future we will extend to other OSS ecosystems. If you have an app to recommend, please do so in the comments or via our social media channels. 1. Mynd Calendar apps have come and gone, and nothing has yet replaced the tried and true calendars from Google, Apple and Microsoft. Enter Mynd, an "intelligent mobile calendar" from Alminder Inc. This, loyal readers, is the game changer. 2. FTL: Faster Than Light Though more and more people are playing games on their iOS devices, most of those games are pretty basic and, for self-identifying gamers, extremely boring. If you've been looking for a real-deal game to sink your thumbs into, buckle up for Faster Than Light. 3. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock In my humble opinion, the worst part of the day is setting an alarm for the next morning. But it doesn't have to be that way anymore, thanks to Sleep Cycle, an intelligent alarm clock from Northcube AB. 4. Data Count In an era of data caps, we could all use a tool to help us avoid the additional charges that accompany all those streaming overages. Data Count, from Creo, is just the ticket. 5. Monument Valley Sometimes, apps transcend ones and zeros. They usher in a new way of life, perhaps, or offer a major social improvement. And, in rare cases, they become true art. 6. Pinnacle Studio for iPhone Heres one for the pros. Or anyone who takes a lot of photos. Which is just about everyone with an iPhone.

Sharing files with colleagues and clients should be easy and convenient. What it shouldn't be is a security risk - but it frequently is. Because many small businesses don't have the right file-sharing systems and policies, many turn to unsafe practices that often put both their business's and clients' privacy in jeopardy. Is your business guilty of engaging in dangerous file sharing habits? Here are five you need to watch out for and what you can do about them. 1. Sharing files via email The most obvious dangerous habit is sharing files via email. Just the other day I received a design document from a client as an email attachment. 2. Using consumer-grade cloud solutions Workers around the world are putting themselves and their employers at risk by indiscriminately using unauthorized file sharing services on their mobile and desktop devices - to the tune of $2 billion. With more workers joining the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) revolution and turning to insecure file sharing services like personal Dropbox and Google Drive accounts, the threat is greater than ever. 3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing P2P sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It's also great software to get hacked. 4. Using flash drives Flash drives are the easy tool of choice for infection since they bypass network security. If an infected file is on a flash drive and inserted into a system, it can start an infection spread from the PC. 5. Lack of visibility The danger starts when employees take matters into their own hands and engage a file sharing service on their own. The individual making a one-off decision is not going to be thinking of the bigger picture of organization-wide requirements.

Protecting yourself against harmful and life threatening viruses, its best to choose the antivirus by brand name. But each Antivirus download that you can find on the internet is dependent on what is most important to the user in terms of variables. Some are more dedicated to filtering through malware and spyware; some systems pride themselves on being the most reliable, or adaptable to the constant change of cyberspace gunk that's floating around. So with all these choices, how're we supposed to know which program is suited to our professional needs? We hope to address those concerns and point the potential onlooker in the right direction for a potential download, or perhaps full-on purchase of the bundled software. For the moment we'll be looking at Avast! and AVG which are both free antivirus downloads available for your computer on reliable online websites. Avast! Free Antivirus Software: The Basics Chances are if you're looking to get in on the ground floor to check if Avast! is right for you, then you'll be looking into the coverage that the free antivirus download is going to offer. Avast! is ranked as one of the top antivirus programs in the market with 17% of users in the entire market share of protection services. Which is pretty far up there with McAfee, Bitdefender, and other potential competition. AVG Antivirus Software: The Basics In comparison to Avast! the folks at AVG are a little behind in their numbers at 170 million+ having entrusted their computer's health to the program. But the software itself is secure and accessible on their website. AVG have won an array of awards for their antivirus software, and can be considered a lively competitor to Avast! and other protection bundles.

Swipe right, chat to a fake user and your personal data could be stolen. A series of bots have invaded dating app Tinder and are spreading dangerous downloads after luring users with tempting profiles and pictures, an antivirus developer has discovered. Bitdefender Labs is currently investigating both the Android application and the bots that seem to have stolen pictures from an Arizona-based photography studio. Some of these images are also being used for fake Facebook profiles. Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender, said: "After users swipe the right button on Tinder to indicate that they like a profile, the bots engage users in automated conversations until they convince them to click on a dubious link. "The name of the URL gives the impression of an official page of the dating app and for extra legitimacy scammers also registered it on a reputable .com domain." Bitdefender warns users to be aware of this risk, and advises that a typical bot message reads: "Hey, how are you doing? I'm still recovering from last night? Relaxing with a game on my phone, castle clash. Have you heard about it? Play with me and you may get my phone number."

Tech Reviews by The Corliss Group--Foxconn, which assembles gadgets for companies such as Apple Inc., said it has sold a number of its communications technology patents to Google Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Taiwan-based Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., made a name for itself in contract manufacturing by making Apple's iPhones and Sony's PlayStation game consoles. But few know the electronics manufacturer has been developing new technologies and has a sizable patent portfolio. In a statement, the company said it has applied for 128,400 patents and has been granted more than 64,300 patents world-wide. In the highly competitive technology industry, companies are challenging each other to set industry standards, which has led to a few patent cases. Google, which is battling with Apple for mobile dominance, has continued to strengthen its patent portfolio through acquisitions. The Internet giant's purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2011 gave it a formidable patent portfolio, and protected its Android mobile operating system and partners from legal threat from competitors, including Apple and Microsoft Corp. Foxconn, which also sold some head-mounted display technology patents to Google for an unspecified amount last year, was one of the top 20 U.S. patent owners in 2013, according to Manhattan-based patent advisory company Envision IP.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523846/how-a-database-of-the-worlds-knowledge-shapes-googles-future/ Compiling a giant database of all the facts in the world could help Google's future products understand you better. For all its success, Google's famous Page Rank algorithm has never understood a word of the billions of Web pages it has directed people to over the years. That's why in 2010 Google acquired Metaweb, a company building a database intended to give computers the ability to understand the world. Two years later the company's technology resurfaced as the Knowledge Graph (see "Corliss Tech Review Group: http://thecorlissreviewgroup.com/"). John Giannandrea, vice president of engineering at Google and a Metaweb cofounder, says that will lead to Google's future products being able to truly understand the people who use them and the things they care about. He told MIT Technology Review's Tom Simonite how a data store designed to link together all the knowledge on Earth might do that. What is the Knowledge Graph? It's a distillation of what Google knows about the world. An analogy I often use is maps. For a maps product you have to build a database of the real world and know there are things called streets, rivers, and countries in the physical world. That's creating a symbolic structure for the physical world; the Knowledge Graph does that for the world of ideas and common sense. We have entities in the knowledge graph for foods, recipes, products, ideas in philosophy or history, and famous people. We can have relationships between them, so we can say these two people are married or this place is in this country or we can say this movie is related to this person. How does that make a difference to Google's Web search? We've gone up a level from just talking about the words to talking about what the thing actually is. In crawling and indexing documents we can now have an understanding of what the document is about. If the docum

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